A month away from her 80th birthday, having spent half her life in political office, Maxine Waters is hitting new heights of popularity. And unpopularity.

Waters’ popularity — among most Democrats — is plain to see in the June primary results in her Los Angeles-area congressional district, where 72.3 percent of voters chose her over three Republicans and a Green Party member. It marked the most support for any candidate with at least that many opponents in a California race for the House of Representatives this year.

Her unpopularity — among most Republicans — is just as clear.

In a campaign fundraising email this week, a GOP congressional candidate told supporters they should send donations “if you don’t want to hand control of Congress and our country over to radicals like Maxine Waters.”

The message is particularly telling because it didn’t come from Waters’ opponent in the 43rd District. Instead, it came from Rep. Mimi Walters, a Republican from Irvine who is running for re-election in the 45th District. Walters has zero need to mention Waters at all.

In the 2018 election season, Maxine Waters is the leading lightning rod west of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Her name can rouse Democrats, some of whom are thrilled by her take-no-prisoners statements about the Trump administration. Her name also can rouse Republicans — largely for the same reason — as they strive to turn Waters into the living, breathing symbol of what they consider liberal extremism.

Lightning struck in late June when Waters said at an L.A. rally that people should “push back” if they see a Trump cabinet member “in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station” and “tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,”

After that, the question, fraught with worry for both sides, became whether Waters’ high profile is helping fellow Democrats or helping Republicans.

“The answer to that question is ‘yes’,” said Larry Levine, a longtime Democratic political consultant in the L.A. area.

Levine was only half joking. Over the past three weeks, Waters’ name has become political currency:

Republican candidates invoking Waters’ name as a scare tactic. Orange County’s Walters starts her fundraising message with the reference to Waters, and only later mentions “radicals like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.” Antonio Sabato Jr., an actor challenging Rep. Julia Brownley, D-Westlake Village, told CNN that Waters is “the hustler of hate” and should be behind bars. Sabato is one of the people who say Waters’ exhortation to “push back” was a call to violence, though that doesn’t comport with what Waters actually said.

Crazy Maxine Waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming, together with Nancy Pelosi, the FACE of the Democrat Party. Her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal, will make people flee the Democrats!

Waters laughed when she was told about the column in a phone interview Friday, saying she is “absolutely not” running for president but it’s “very generous of the columnist” to think of it.

Neither, Waters said, does she have any plan to retire after she turns 80 on Aug. 15.

“I have work to do,” Waters said.

The ranking Democrat on the powerful House Financial Services Committee, Waters is in line to become chairwoman if Democrats win control of the House in the Nov. 6 elections. She would be the first woman or African American to run the committee that oversees the banking, insurance and housing industries. The panel also could play a stepped-up role in probing the financial lives of Trump and administration officials.

In the meantime, Waters said, her policy priorities include protecting the Affordable Care Act’s coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, women’s issues — including equal pay — and sexual harassment.

“I’m very involved in public policy,” Waters said. “But the politics get the attention.”

As Waters sees it, her prominence in the so-called resistance movement against the Trump presidency is a natural, honorable step in a career that includes 27 years in the U.S. House and 14 years before that in the California Assembly, where she first made her mark pushing for divestment of state funds from companies that did business with apartheid South Africa.

To others, Waters oversteps the bounds of political civility, beginning with her refusal to attend Trump’s inauguration or first State of the Union address. Those criticisms haven’t only come from Republicans. Pelosi said Waters’ call to confront administration officials in public over Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policy was “unacceptable.”

Perhaps the most cutting criticism of Waters is some Republicans’ faint praise for her success in changing her image to that of a resistance fighter after being better known a decade ago as a fixture on the government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s list of the “Most Corrupt Members of Congress.” (In 2012, the House Ethics Committee cleared Waters of ethics charges revolving around her efforts to get federal aid for a bank in which her husband and campaign contributors were involved.)

Past scandals are an afterthought for current critics, including Waters’ November opponent Omar Navarro, 29, a social media marketer from Torrance whom Waters defeated in 2016 with 76.1 percent of the vote. The district includes parts of L.A., Torrance, Carson, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lawndale and Lomita.

Navarro accuses Waters of “advocating violence” and said she is “obviously campaigning for president.”

Omar Navarro, right, a Republican running against Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, is joined on stage by former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a campaign fundraiser at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes on Oct. 18, 2017. (Photo by Stephen Carr/SCNG)

“She’s not a bad lady in person,” Navarro said. “But when she goes on TV, when she speaks to a crowd, she turns into a different person, a person who is divisive.”

Jack Pandol, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Waters is a good target for Republicans this year because “she routinely makes dangerous or irresponsible statements.”

But Democrats — some of whom note Republicans widely support the single most divisive figure in modern American politics — say the reason Trump is singling out Waters for insults isn’t because of what she’s said but, rather, because of who she is.

“She meets all the criteria for a Trump foil: A, she’s a woman, and B, she’s black,” said Levine, the veteran campaign consultant.

Waters, who holds no Democratic leadership position in the House, is not the face of the party, Levine said, “but [Trump] wishes she was.”

“That’s politics,” said Waters, who thinks GOP leaders are “trying to scare” Republican voters by making “an African-American woman who is very progressive, very outspoken on issues” seem to be a Democratic Party leader.

Political scientists downplay Waters’ likely effect on this fall’s national race for control of the House, in which Democrats need to pick up at least 23 seats to take a majority.

Jack Pitney, professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, said Waters isn’t as well known as political junkies might think.

“If you know who Maxine Waters is, you are probably a high-information voter who had already decided [which party to support],” Pitney said.

Jeffrey Hernandez, a political science professor at East Los Angeles College, said Trump’s focus on Waters might rouse “his white nationalist base” but not the electorate broadly.

“Waters’ combativeness could help Democrats if her voice is part of a chorus that also includes less-strident voices, and whose message is clearly linked to the concerns of working families,” Hernandez said. Without that, “the Democrats risk appearing divided, which, ironically, may turn off independent voters.”

Cal State Northridge political science professor Larry Becker said Waters and her critics might not sway voters directly, but could motivate donors.

“This is the kind of thing campaigns use to raise money,” Becker said.

Kevin Modesti is a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Southern California News Group, covering the political scene in Los Angeles County. An L.A. native, he was a sports writer, columnist and editor for most of his career, and later an editorial board member, writer and editor in the Opinion section. He lives in the San Fernando Valley and is based in the Woodland Hills office.